


Familiar

by phansparent (lestershoweller)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 11:57:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5247410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lestershoweller/pseuds/phansparent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil makes Dan a video telling him he wants them to reveal their relationship finally, but they’re never able to follow through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Familiar

**Author's Note:**

> i'm so sorry about this

It was just opened on Dan’s laptop one morning when he woke up. He turned over in bed to find the space next to him empty, a feeling not completely unfamiliar for Dan, as he had a tendency to wake up later than Phil, a product of his late-night browsing on tumblr long after Phil had begun snoring softly beside him. But just because it was familiar didn’t mean it was any easier to wake up without Phil’s arms wrapped around his waist and tiny kisses peppered on his neck below his ear. Dan wishes now especially that familiar feelings would get easier to feel.

The computer was propped open on his desk, and Phil had set it so the screen wouldn’t switch off even while it remained untouched. There was a video of Phil on the screen, one that was unfamiliar to Dan. He pulled the covers off the bed with him as he hobbled over to his chair and sat down. He pressed play.

* * *

“Hi Dan!” Phil shouts, waving his hand at Dan through the screen. He glances at it and laughs. “Why did I do that? I’m acting like I’m filming for YouTube.”

“I don’t know why I’m filming this instead of just saying it to you. I guess I’ve always been better at using videos to express my feelings than expressing them to your face. Don’t worry, I haven’t uploaded this one to my side channel.” Phil laughs again. “Though, it’s kind of funny because that’s what I want to do – upload a video – not this one but a video. Maybe one where you do the talking and explaining because you’re better at this than I am.”

“It’s just, I woke up this morning and saw you sleeping next to me, and I scooted closer to you and fit my chin in the space between your neck and shoulder, and you made this cute little sigh and your lip curled up, and your dimple caved in. It was like, even though you were sound asleep, your body still felt me there and wanted me there. And I wanted to be there more than anything else. I realized I never wanted to go another morning not wrapped around you.”

“But we can’t be together for the rest of our lives in secret. I guess I used to be afraid that we’d break up, but I know now that’s not going to happen. That day on the Manchester Eye, when you kissed me, and my heart flipped over, I think deep down I knew it then. For years I thought I was broken because I’d dated lots of people, and we had a good time sure, but I never felt that rush in my chest or that can’t get enough of you feeling. And with you, five hour Skype calls felt like five minutes, and every day I spent without you felt like a waste of my life. It’s been five years, and it still feels like I’ll never have enough time to know everything I want to know about you. There’s not enough time for all the kisses I want to give you, and all the times I want to hear you laugh, and all the times I want you to rest your head on my shoulder when I’m editing a video and I say I’m too busy to cuddle. There’s not enough moments in the day to tell you I love you every time I feel it. I never truly loved anyone before you, and I’m never going to love anyone after you. It’s just you, and I want everyone to know it’s just you.”

“I’m sorry it’s taken so long for me to say this. I guess I was scared so I let myself believe this was both of our choices even though I could see that your smiles when we talked about the hiding changed to frowns as soon as I looked away. And I knew all those tumblr posts and outbursts were just you getting defensive in an attempt to protect me. I knew it was overcompensation for the fact you’ve always been ready to tell the world you love me, and I’ve been running away from it for five years. But I don’t want to run anymore. I think we should tell everyone about us, the people we know, the people we don’t know, and all the fans. I want them all to know.”

Phil stops and grins at the camera. He makes a heart shape with his hands. “I have to go out for some things. I’ll be back soon. I love you so much Dan.”

The video cuts out, and Dan remembers what it’s like to have a room of thousands of people staring at him. Thousands of crying faces are staring at him, waiting for him to break down too. Three thousand people are here, the three thousand that were able to get inside, not nearly as many as wanted to.

He sticks his hand in his pocket and rolls the cool silver band between his fingers. He doesn’t feel right putting it on because Phil had never asked him to wear it. He’d still been carrying it in his pocket when the ambulance pulled up to the scene, too late to do anything but transport Phil’s lifeless body to the hospital. “Dead on arrival,” Dan had heard the doctors whisper, a phrase they wouldn’t use to his face.

Twirling the ring between his fingers does nothing to prevent the tears from rolling down his cheeks. He doesn’t even feel them dropping from his eyes anymore, only notices them as they fall off his chin onto the floor. It’s been three weeks, and the crying is familiar now, coming so often that Dan wonders how he hasn’t become drained of tears.

He chooses to show the fans the video because he doesn’t know how to tell them, but he thinks Phil would have wanted it this way. Dan needs them to understand why he’s going to disappear now, maybe for a short time, maybe forever. He needs them to understand that Phil Lester was more than just someone they watched on the Internet but the most beautiful being that had walked the earth, so beautiful that the earth felt the need to steal him away.

In the morning, Dan searches the empty bed for some remainder of Phil. He doesn’t forget anymore when he wakes up. For the first week, he’d relive that moment of knowing Phil was gone over and over. He’d wake up and press his hands to the cold side of the bed, which no longer had a Phil sized imprint. He’d even smell the faint scent of coffee in the kitchen and think Phil would come in soon with a cup for Dan, nuzzle him on the neck and whisper how it was too late to be sleeping in because he was getting lonely. But then he’d remember, and he’d curl up into a ball, sobbing and taking in quick breaths that never bought him enough air. “I’m not going to love anyone after you,” he repeats to himself, at one point becoming so angry at the words that he chucks his bedside lamp into the mirror in the corner of his room, not particularly fearful of any more bad luck. He hates that Phil being dead is familiar now. He hates that it being familiar doesn’t mean it hurts any less.

He moves into Phil’s bedroom, which despite being a prop still smells like him, a mix of the strawberry scented body wash he liked to use and the pine scented body wash he used to cover up his feminine choice. But that smell is depleting too, becoming too familiar to Dan’s nose, and slowly being erased by the salty smell of tears and sweat. Dan goes days without a shower, after sweating buckets into the sheets from nightmares where Phil checks that text message from him as he’s walking across the road, so Phil never sees the driver spin around the corner too quickly.

_I never want to wake up another morning without you either,_ it read.

But it was only Phil who got his wish.


End file.
